


rage, rage against the dying of the light

by rizcriz



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, In which case someone actually cares about Quentin's death, M/M, its eliot, post 4x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 19:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18666832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rizcriz/pseuds/rizcriz
Summary: “Where are you going?”He pauses by the refrigerator, tries not to notice the sticky note with Quentin’s handwriting stuck to a menu on the freezer door--though, it hasn’t worked the other six times he’s been in the kitchen, so why would it now? “Well,” he says, reaching up with only a minor twinge in his gut, to scratch at the edge of the menu. “Everyone’s getting their happy ever afters. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that.” The words come out softer than he intends, but he’s too busy following the anxious loop on the y of Friday with his eyes, while the crisp cardboard of the menu falls into the crook between his nail and skin.“Eliot.” It’s all command seeped in worry.And if he weren’t already so sick of people pretending to care, he’d play along.--Or, Eliot's sick of the "pretend everything's okay" game.





	rage, rage against the dying of the light

Eliot watches Josh pull away from Margo; sees the soft little smile (usually reserved for Eliot, thank you) she sends his direction as he walks out of the room, and can't help but tilt his head, offering her an inquisitive half glare.

“You’re with _Josh_?”

She rolls her eyes, moving to sit across from him at the bar. Probably to make sure his stubbornness doesn’t send him crashing to the kitchen floor like it had yesterday. “No,” She says, like she’s speaking to a child exceptionally slow to learn, “I’m _in love with_ Josh.”

He backs up the step that it takes to, and leans against the counter behind him with a soft thump that vibrates up through his stitches, because he’s not quite sure he heard that correctly. Because the Margo he knows wouldn’t be this gone on--

“ . . . The same Josh that _left us for dead_ in the NeItherlands?”

One of her hands goes to her hips, which is _danger zone one_ if he’s ever seen it--and he has--and her other hand taps away at the bar top pointedly. The soft, slightly hostile clacks of her nail accompany the mounting irritation in her words. “That was a one time deal, and you know _damn well_ he’s not that guy anymore.”

Which, with the glare and the nail and the hip, would have said a whole fuck of a lot if they were talking about literally anything else, anywhere else. And they weren’t . . . here. After. _After_. Everything, actually. _No_. Not everything. Everything doesn’t even begin to cover the half of it. It’s.

After . . . _Quentin_.

He sets his jaw and looks at the ground in front of the bar. “Right. One time deal. Not that guy. _Got it_.” Shaking his head, he carefully turns to set down his cup of tea--because that’s who he is now, apparently. He drinks _tea_ out of a mug rather than bourbon out of a tumbler--and pulls his sleeves down over his hands as he grabs his cane and moves to go around the bar.

She frowns up at him, worry creasing her brow line, and if he were still the guy he was a year ago, and Quentin were off in another room pining after a woman, and everything that happened _hadn’t_ happened. If. If. If. It’s all a fucking long winded trail of if’s that’ll never be fulfilled. But if it were then instead of now--he’d crack a joke; something something wrinkles age you, Bambi, something something. His brains not quite up to the making jokes stage of grief yet.

Even though his life _is_ a joke with no punchline. Unless the near constant gut punches count. In which case, he’s had his fill, thanks.

“Where are you going?”

He pauses by the refrigerator, tries not to notice the sticky note with Quentin’s handwriting stuck to a menu on the freezer door--though, it hasn’t worked the other six times he’s been in the kitchen, so why would it now? “Well,” he says, reaching up with only a minor twinge in his gut, to scratch at the edge of the menu. “Everyone’s getting their happy ever afters. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that.” The words come out softer than he intends, but he’s too busy following the anxious loop on the y of Friday with his eyes, while the crisp cardboard of the menu falls into the crook between his nail and skin.

“ _Eliot._ ” It’s all command seeped in worry.

And if he weren’t already so sick of people pretending to care, he’d play along.

But.

“I really can’t look at people being in love right now, Bambi.” He tears his gaze away from the post-it, though it feels like losing him all over again, which doesn’t even make any _sense_. “Can you at least pretend to understand that for five seconds?” The twinge in his gut grows, and he knows it’s not just the stitches pulling as his voice rises. “Drop the newly wed act for five fucking seconds and at least _pretend_ to get what the fuck I’m going through right now.”

She balks. Which shocks. Because this is Margo, and usually she just attacks. Her hands slide off the table and her hip, and hang limply beside her. She almost looks like a child. “That’s not fair.”

Scoffing, he twists away and moves around the counter, muttering. “Neither is _any_ of this. And yet.” He’d toss his hands out at his sides, but if there’s anything the past few days has taught him--other than the obvious, the everything, everything, everything chanting at the back of his head--it’s that any movement other than the minor, slow steps, is hell on his stitches and stomach.

He settles for a glare directed down at the ground.

“ . . . And yet.” He hears her swallow as he walks behind her, and then, “I don’t deserve this, Eliot.”

That’s. Not where he expected this conversation to go. If he’s being honest, he expected her to let him walk away. They’d all let Quentin walk away. Why should Eliot be any different? “Deserve what, exactly?”

She twists around just in time for him to look up and see the hurt flashing behind her eyes like lightning. The kind of hurt she could use to weaponize against him. “Your wrath. I fought like hell to get you back--”

“--And you didn’t once think to check on him.” He’s not about to let her weaponize any of this pain against him. Not when . . . Not _when_.

She stares at him for a long moment, mouth agape, before she climbs down from the stool, and points at him with a trembling hand. “ _He didn’t love you.”_ She says each word, carefully punctuated like it’s a lesson he needs to learn, and it goes straight to his heart like a fucking spike stabbed through his spine. “He got back together with Alice. How can you--”

He takes a step closer to her; feels those shutters on his pain that he’d carefully crafted once Julia--’ _I’m so sorry, Eliot_ ’--told him everything, fall like fucking leaves on the wind. “ _I_ loved _him_ ,” He pauses between each word to shove just as much emphasis at her, hoping it hits just as harshly because-- _he loves him, he loves him, loves-_ -, “That should have been enough for _you_ to care about _him_.” The tears burn, stinging at his eyes and nose like they’ve been waiting for this moment.

And he supposes they have. He’s got enough tears to fill up a lifetime. Two, actually.

She stumbles back a step. “You think I didn’t care about him? That I’m not hurting?” He should feel bad for causing the glassy look to her eyes--for the tears slipping out and over her waterproof mascara.

But he doesn’t.

Because it’s always past tense with them. With her.

Loved. Cared. Thought. Believed.

Nobody love _s_ him. Cares about him. Believes in him.

Nobody but Eliot.

“No,” He says after a moment, tilting his chin up. “I just don’t think you cared _enough_.” He pauses, eyes catching on the sweater strewn on the chair of the dining room table behind her--black like the one he wears in Eliot’s memories. He wonders if it still smells like him. One of these days he’s going to have the strength to move it. To clutch it tight like Quentin’s still here, but. He shakes his head and turns his gaze back down on Margo. “Neither of us ever do. Not until it’s too late.”

She scoffs, the sound wet and angry, “Oh, fuck _off--_ ”

“He did,” He interrupts, twisting around to look at the writing on the refrigerator again. “Love me, by the way.” It’s a mundane fucking note that doesn’t really mean anything. Just a sloppy, quickly scrawled, ‘ _Don’t forget--friday_!’ But it’s so familiar. Because he’d had a lifetime of pointless little Quentin notes. Is it so wrong he’d hoped for a second one? “ _I_ ruined it. _I_ broke _his_ heart. And now he’s dead, and Alice is his pseudo widow. And I don’t even get to grieve.” The words come out distracted; soft and a little far away.

Which makes sense, because he’s almost drifting off into Fillory. Can almost hear a child's laughter, loud and--’ _Oh my god, Teddy, not through the mud!_ ’--clear, and Quentin’s stupid little scrunched up face giggle--

“ _Nobodies_ saying you don’t get to grieve.”

The image shatters, and he snaps his neck around to look at her.

“Is that why you said he doesn’t love me? Because I’m _allowed_ to grieve him? Because it’s not supposed to hurt, right?” He scoffs, turning his back on her and moving to head towards his chosen room. “Give me a break, Margo. You just want to go off and be happy with Josh,” His hand comes out to trail along the side of the couch as he goes. Imagines Quentin sitting here, trying to get comfortable on the world's most uncomfortable couch. Imagines him complaining and what it would have been like to sit on; to have the chance to pretend to be annoyed with him--’ _Shh, Bambi, let him talk_ ,’--. “We’re . . . we’re not who we were a year ago and it’s fucking childish to pretend we are.”

He hears her take a step closer to him, heels on the hardwood harsh against his ears. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Eyes darting up to the ceiling, he swallows before continuing, because it’s something trailing at the edges of his mind and heart that’s been waiting to get out. Like a fucking lioness stalking her enclosure, waiting for her first chance at escape. Finally, he turns around, and levels her with a look, as the tears finally reach his lashes, building up and blurring his vision. “I _needed_ you. And you--”

“ _No_ ,” She all but hisses, moving in and pointing a finger again, “You do _not_ get to blame me for this, Eliot. We are _not_ playing that game.”

He looks down as the first daring tear manages to drop down onto his cheek, and take the warm path down to his jaw, before sliding down his throat and getting caught in the cotton of his shirt. “I’m not blaming _you_ .” He looks back up here, can’t be bothered by the tears that follow the first. “I’m blaming _all_ of you. I couldn’t-- _do_ anything. But you saw him unraveling. You _saw_ it. And none of you--you let him go on a fucking quest. You didn’t even let him say goodbye.”

Shaking, she takes another step in. “You were _unconscious_.”

“Yeah,” He agrees with a short nod as he leans against the side of the couch because standing so long gets tiring on his legs and he doesn’t need the point of this all to disappear because he’s collapsed again. Or something equally idiotic. “I noticed the trend of making decisions for people who are unconscious going around.”

“. . . What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He shakes his head and looks down at the cane in his hand; a perfect replica--from his mind of one from a better-- _an argument in the middle of summer, customer made, joy and anger and stubbornness dancing in the air_ \--life. “It doesn’t matter.” And it really doesn’t. Because what’s done is done, and nobody can fix it. Not anymore. “Go back to Fillory. Be happy with Josh.”

He doesn’t miss the shaky inhale, or the hesitance when she says, “You say that like you’re not coming with me.” It’s hidden behind her usual show of confidence, but he knows her well enough. Can see her holding everything else back, beneath the set shoulders and jaw.

 _‘When I’m braver know it’s because of you.’_ He can almost feel the pseudo fixed memory dancing around him. Words he never actually got to say taunting him.

“I’m not.”

She inhales quickly, almost like she’s been slapped. “Eliot--”

“I’m going to do what everyone else is too preoccupied to. What he’d do for any of us.”  Fight. He’d fucking fight until he was nothing but skin and bones and the world was set aflame beneath his bare feet. Quentin never would have said, ‘ _l_ _et’s hold a memorial and move on.'_  Not even death could stop him.

Gods couldn’t. Why would _Death_?

_When I’m braver, know it’s because of you._

“You can’t be serious.”

He nods once. “I’m gonna get him back.”

“You can’t. He’s dead.” She doesn’t even move, the words come out completely cold. Ice water in a room of fire. And he knows he’s lost her.

“We’ve _all_ died.” It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want her back, though.

“It’s _different_.”

“Yeah,” He nods, gently lifting an arm to wave it nonchalantly. His gut twinges when he lifts it just a little too high, and he buckles forward, but catches himself on the couch. When he looks back up, Margo’s closer, eyes wide and unsure. It’s a new look on her. Uncertainty. She wears it better than she probably thinks she does. “When we all died, _he_ cared to try and bring _us_ back. But none of us quite cared for him enough, did we?”

Her jaw clicks. “We _cared_.”

Eliot shrugs, and carefully pushes off from the couch; doesn’t miss the way her hands twitch at her side, like she’s preparing to catch him if he falls. “He didn’t think so,” he says, standing to as close to full attention as his stitches will allow.

She watches his legs for a moment, before her gaze slides up to his. “ . . . You can’t know that, Eliot. He--”

“I _told_ you. I broke his heart. _To protect myself_. With no regard for him. _Julia’s_ only ever cared about herself. Makes the god thing make a whole lot of sense when you think about it,” He glances around the room, “23 threw a fucking egg in the fire; that tells you everything about _their_ relationship. Kady didn’t give a fuck about him,” His gaze stutters on a stain on the rug by the coffee table. Julia had pointed it out to him. Quesadilla cheese. She’d thought it was just a funny anecdote about Quentin not getting a plate.

But Eliot knew-- _knows_ \--better. Because the monster took a toll on more than just Quentin’s mind. He took a toll on his _body_ , too. He’d asked if Julia ever saw Quentin eat anything. But she only had stories of the monster dropping in, and making Quentin _drop his food_. Dozens of them.

At least she had the decency to look horrified as the realization clicked.

He moves on from the cheese stain, hand sliding along the side of the couch. He watches the drag of his fingers on the leather as he speaks. “Alice is the only one who cared, but. Even she let him walk into that room. She saw him falling apart, and cared more about feeling _okay_ than making sure the one person of all of us that shouldn’t go into the perfect suicide scenario stayed behind.”

“Eliot . . .”

He looks up at her, little bubbles of rage working their way up and out. “Honestly what the fuck did she expect? I _saw_ him--I _see_ him. In the monster’s memories. In my _dreams_ . He was so _fucking_ far gone; and she thought they’d get out of there alive? _Please_.” His voice cracks on the end of the word; breaks off like something else is trying to get out alongside it.

“You’re drunk.”

He laughs, bitter and annoyingly sober, because, yeah, she really doesn’t know him anymore. They’re not who they were a year ago. He’s not the same person that shot the monster and sealed Quentin’s fate. And she’s not the same person that handed him the gun to do it. “I’m _angry_.”

“Yeah. And you’re taking it out on the world--”

“No,” He interrupts, shaking his head at her, the humor of the situation, as meager as it was, fading away faster than it appeared, “For once, I’m taking it out on the people who actually _deserve_ it. You were all there watching it happen. He showed up with the monster, covered in blood, and nobody thought to ask if he was okay? He--he _spiraled_. For a _year_. And you all basically ushered him into his suicide like it was a fucking gift wrapped with a bow.” The words slowly gain momentum, and he doesn’t realize he’s moved until he’s standing there, looming over her, the words, an angry shout, falling, and sitting in the air between them.  

Her chin trembles, but she stands tall. “That’s not fair.” Even her words come out uneven.

He nods down at her, setting his jaw; the tendons in his neck go taut, and he just wants to go to sleep. But he can’t--dreams of not quite his hands touching, clinging, grabbing; _choking--_ haunt him every night. Even doped up, sleep doesn’t come. And if it does, it doesn’t stay.  “No. It’s not.”

She pauses. Takes a step back and narrows her eyes up at him. Her mascara’s smudged--so, not waterproof, then. Feels a bit like a testament to how little she cared; that she thinks she can go a day without crying, when Eliot’s wondered if there’s a day he ever will again. “You’re seriously just. _What_? Going to stay behind and live in the past? Thinking of what could have been? That’s not _you_ . You need to let him go. _Move on_ . Find someone that’ll _actually--_ ” She stops, teeth clanking angrily as she slams her mouth shut.

“What?” He moves closer, leaning in. “No, don’t stop yourself. Someone that’ll actually _what_ ? Care about me? Because I seem to recall him fighting just as hard as-- _if not, harder than_ \--you trying to get me back.”

“Everything I did was for you, you asshole. I gave up _my kingdom_!” He figures she’d shove him if not for the twenty three stitches and practically gaping wound in his abdomen.

He kind of wants her to, anyways.

He looks down at her with a look he’s only ever given to the rest of the world; never dared to direct even in her general vicinity. Because she’s Margo--his _Bambi_ \--and it never felt right. But Quentin’s gone and _nothing_ feels right. “And yet you couldn’t take five seconds to do a fucking _wellness check_.”

“ _He_ wasn’t my priority!”

“But he was _mine_!” It comes out as deep as a growl, but as desperate as a cry, and he wishes for the energy to shake her. Wishes he could just reach out and grab her by the shoulders and ask her when she stopped loving Quentin; when she stopped believing _he_ loved Quentin. “And you knew that.” Warmth streaks down his cheeks, and he realizes the tears never really stopped falling. If he were the him of the past, he’d take a deep breath and walk away to pretend everything’s fine. But he’s not. And nothing is. “You’ve known for _years_ how I feel about him. And didn’t think to wonder what would happen if I came back and he was gone.”

“He _wasn’t_ gone.”

He stumbles back a step, because she can’t seriously--but she’s staring up at him; blankly confused. And it’s clear.

“ . . . if you think _that_ , you’re seriously not as smart as I thought you were.”

Her mouth falls open. “ _Eliot_.”

He shakes his head and turns away from her, leaning heavily into the cane as he makes his way to his room. “You should just go. I’ll be fine. The stitches are coming out tomorrow.” It’s a lie, and they both know it. But, the point stands in the space between them.  

In her response, the sound broken; tortured. “Don’t do this, El.”

He pauses, leaning into the cane but not turning around to look at her. “ . . . I always thought. You and I would never stop understanding each other. That we were as close to soulmates as physics or whatever allowed.”

“ _El_ . . .” He thinks she’s crying, but he can’t make himself look back at her to be sure. Because he does love her. With as much as is left of his heart that isn’t seeking a way to get Quentin back. But.

He doesn’t have much room for love these days.

He continues speaking anyways, staring down at the floor in front of him. Because for a long time, this was all he thought he’d ever get. “That one day, when we were old and grey and finally ready to settle down, we might even have some kind of stupid double wedding, if we didn’t just end up marrying each other.” For a long time, he thought it was all he deserved. It’s not a bad future.

But he deserves more, too.

“We can _still_ \--”

He shakes his head and starts walking again. “You can’t expect me to love you and only you for the rest my life, Margo.” Especially when she’s found someone who makes her happy. And he’s lost the only one that’s ever given him even the _semblance_ of happiness. Or the-- _stars and fires by the mosaic, cool, calm ease, smiles and kisses--_ belief that he’s capable and allowed.

“I don’t--”

“Then go back to Fillory with Josh. Go be happy.” Because he can’t.

Not until he gets Quentin back. Not because he’s incapable of happiness with him gone; he opened the door, it doesn’t mean it closes behind him. But because he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want new memories because the old- _-flowers and children and mosaics, and even quests and castles and pain_ \--are still too new, too _precious_ to cast away.

She doesn’t respond, but he hears the quiet, dejected click-clack of her heels as she moves across the dining room, and heads into the soft carpet in the living room. Can hear her sit down on the uncomfortable couch-- _Quentin would hate it, Quentin probably hated it, Quentin definitely hated it_ \--the jangle of her bracelets as she gets comfortable.

He pretends not to hear her _cry--_ because, even with all this rage and hurt working its way through him, he can’t handle Margo crying; the urge to do anything to make it stop is almost as strong as the need to bring Quentin back--as he pushes open his door, and carefully closes it behind him. Once he hears the soft click, he pushes in, all the air rushing out of him, and rests his forehead against it; a low, broken sound forcing its way out from the back of his throat. The cane slips from his hand, and he can’t even bothered to fight gravity or magic to catch it. His hands come up to press into the cool wood.

And for a moment, if he closes his eyes, he can pull a memory. From half a century ago, in a lifetime that never actually happened-- _it happened, it did; it was beautiful, it really was_ \--when he’d hurt Quentin. When he’d said awful things and he’d pressed up against a locked cottage door, just like this, and said everything through the wood he couldn’t say to Quentin’s face.

It’d felt hopeless, then, too.

But the door eventually opened.

Quentin’s arms came through first, and pulled him in. Held him tight. Like _he_ was the one apologizing.

It’d been okay, then.

He can pretend for a moment that it’s just like that day.

And then, he’s going to do what nobody else seems willing to do. He’s going to fucking fight. And he’s going to get him back. Because magic has taken them from one another a dozen and one times, and he’ll be fucking damned if his selfishness, and their friends negligence, makes this the time they lose.

He turns around, presses his back into the wood, and carefully slides down it. His gut screams, stitches flexing in ways they’re not meant to, but he can’t really care. Just keeps going until he can sit there, and look into the expanse of the room. Until he can see, in his pain med and sleep deprived haze, their son racing across the room. And then their grandkids.

Behind them, he can see the box Julia slid under his bed. Briefly breaks the spell long enough to wonder if he’ll ever be ready to open it; or if he won’t have to. If he has to, it’ll be because it’ll hold an answer to getting Quentin back. He won’t accept any other reason.

 If the rest of them can be happy after letting Quentin kill himself, then Eliot can be happy when he brings him back.

 


End file.
